A recent mobile email campaign from real estate company Citi Habitats to drive awareness for its mobile applications resulted in approximately 414 app downloads.

The campaign targeted users of Apple devices in the metro areas of Washington, Philadelphia and New York. Ads appeared in the email newsletters from publishers such as The Daily Beast, MSNBC and New York Daily News and were delivered based on which device someone was using.

?The goal of the campaign was to have users in the targeted areas download Citi Habitat?s app for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch,? said Dave Hendricks, chief operating officer of LiveIntent, New York. ?They only wanted to reach people in those markets.

?Because the ads were optimized for those users in those markets, on those devices, when they clicked they went to the app store and downloaded the app,? he said.

Mobile clicks
LiveIntent?s real-time email ad platform enables ads to be presented to users who open an email newsletters from one of the publisher?s in its network and serve the ad based on where users are and what device they are using.

The emails were sent by 10 different publishers and there were 64 different ad placements.

The ads encouraged viewers to download the Citi Habitats app, which launched earlier this year, for their area and device in order to help them with their search for a new home. The campaign kicked off in August.

The campaign had a total of 1,112 clicks, or a 0.252 percent click-through rate. The number of impressions served across 10 different publishers totaled 445,247.

IPad and iPhone accounted for 42 percent of the impressions. Safari received 7 percent and Internet Explorer 37 percent.

Additionally, 13 percent of impressions were from devices that were not targeted but that were forwarded to from a mobile device.

?We believe that people do this when they see an ad on their mobile device and want to see it on a bigger screen like a desktop,? Mr. Hendricks said.

Click through rates by device were 0.34 percent for iPhones, 0.31 percent for iPads, 0.46 percent for iPod touches and 0.18 for Internet Explorer.

Mobile and local targeted ads shown on email on iPhones and iPads were double the App download click through rates on Internet Explorer.

?The reason why the campaign was a success is because our technology allows an advertiser to buy only the impressions they want in email,? Mr. Hendricks said.

?Before, marketers would have had to go to dozens of publishers on an individual basis and try to identify prior to sending who is on a mobile device,? he said. 

Email is an effective way for marketers to reach mobile users as smartphone penetration grows.

Twenty-plus percent of all email is opened and read on mobile devices ? and, that number is growing.

?More and more people are getting smartphones, so more email is being consumed on the go, on the train, while someone is waiting online,? Mr. Hendricks said.

Email newsletters also provide an effective way to reach mobile users since users have subscribed to them.

?People are used to receiving ads within a magazine or in newspapers,? Mr. Hendricks said.

?Getting email from branded publishers that they have opted in for and receiving an ad in that framework makes sense for the user,? he said.

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York